Digital content has gained wide acceptance in the public. Such content includes, but is not limited to: movies, videos, music, and the like. Consequently, many consumers and businesses employ various digital media devices or systems that enable the reception of such digital multimedia content via several different communication channels (e.g., a wireless link, such as a satellite link, or a wired link, such as a cable connection). Similarly, the communication channel may also be a telephony based connection, such as DSL and the like. Regardless of the type of channel, the digital content and/or the distribution of the digital content is typically secured using a conditional access (CA) mechanism and a digital rights management (DRM) mechanism (e.g., encryption/decryption using keys).
Presently, specifications are being developed with respect to expanding the ways that content and services can be distributed over wireless communication networks. One such set of standards is being developed by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). In the OMA DRM system, for example, digital content (e.g., a movie or song) is associated with a rights object (RO). The RO provides granting rights to a client device for viewing or otherwise consuming the digital content. The entity in the client device that manages permissions and corresponding constraints relative to use of the digital content is commonly denoted as a DRM Agent. Nominally, a DRM Agent obtains an RO from a rights issuer (RI). DRM Agents conformant to the new OMA Secure Content Exchange (SCE) specifications (as well as to the legacy OMA DRM v2.x (i.e. OMA DRM v2.0 or OMA DRM v2.1) system) are intended to have the opportunity to participate in Rights transfers with other such DRM Agents, and to take full advantage of User Domains for which potentially multiple RIs and/or Local Rights Managers (LRM) create Rights Objects (designated as User Domain ROs). In the legacy OMA DRM v2.x system a domain is associated with and managed by a single Rights Issuer, which implies that each DRM Agent needs to register with each RI for which it wants to make successful use of Domain ROs generated by that RI. User Domains are intended to overcome that deficiency for SCE-conformant DRM Agents, while providing backwards-compatible domain support for legacy DRM Agents. This requires a secure association of Rights Issuers and/or Local Rights Managers with a Domain Enforcement Agent (DEA) that operates under oversight of a Domain Authority (DA), such that SCE-conformant DRM Agents can become members of (i.e., join) a User Domain that is managed by that DEA, be able to provide proof of membership in the User Domain, and be assured that a Rights Issuer or Local Rights Manager from which they accept User Domain Rights Objects is legitimately associated with that User Domain.